Widow of meningitis victim Judge Lovelace files $15M suit over death

Lovelace's 2012 death began local fungal meningitis toll

Sep. 13, 2013

Joyce Lovelace is joined by Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., as she testifies at a House subcommittee hearing Nov. 14, 2012. Her husband died Sept. 17, 2012, of what is believed to be fungal contamination from a series of epidural steroid injections. / File / Gannett

Written by

Walter F. Roche Jr.

The Tennessean

Kentucky Circuit Court Judge Eddie C. Lovelace, 78, Albany, Ky.

'I just hope to call attention to the negligence ... that has taken my husband's life,' said Joyce Lovelace, whose husband, Eddie, died of fungal meningitis. / Submitted

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A $15 million lawsuit has been filed in U.S. District Court by the widow of Kentucky Circuit Judge Eddie C. Lovelace, the first known local victim of a fungal meningitis outbreak blamed on a defunct Massachusetts drug compounder.

The 54-page complaint filed late Thursday charges negligence, violations of the state product and health liability laws and civil conspiracy. Defendants include the owners of the defunct compounding firm and the Saint Thomas Outpatient Neurosurgical Center, where Lovelace was injected with a spinal steroid three times.

The filing, just days before the one-year anniversary of the 78-year-old Kentucky judge’s death, comes as state and federal officials raised by one the official death toll from the outbreak among Tennessee patients from 15 to 16.

Body exhumed

The suit discloses that Lovelace’s body had to be exhumed a month after his death in order to be certain of the cause. After an autopsy, his death certificate was amended.

“The autopsy showed fungal cerebral vasculitis and confirmed the presence of Exserohilum fungus,” the complaint states, referring to the same fungus federal investigators tracked back to the drug compounding firm in Massachusetts, the New England Compounding Center.

The increase in Tennessee’s official death toll was posted on the website for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A Tennessee Health Department spokeswoman acknowledged the increase Thursday.

The uncounted death was revealed in a lawsuit filed recently in U.S. District Court by the family of Gokulbhai Patel of Goodlettsville, who died Jan. 13 from fungal meningitis. Patel was sickened after receiving two injections of methylprednisolone acetate at the outpatient neurosurgical center in Nashville.

Deadline approaches

The Lovelace suit is one of more than a dozen to be filed as a deadline approaches under the state health and product liability laws.

According to the suit filed by Joyce Lovelace, the judge’s widow, he was injected with methylprednisolone acetate at the outpatient neurosurgical center on July 27, Aug. 17 and Aug. 31 of last year.

He “became very ill” shortly after the third shot and died on Sept. 17.

Widow Joyce Lovelace testified

After the cause of Lovelace’s death became known, Joyce Lovelace was a witness before a congressional committee investigating the outbreak.

“My family is bitter, we are angry, we are heartbroken and devastated. I come here begging you to do something about the matter,” she told the panel.

Congress has yet to act on proposals to further regulate drug compounders, although a new bipartisan proposal was unveiled Thursday.

According to the suit, on Sept. 25 the Tennessee Health Department notified the CDC of a patient “with the onset of meningitis following an epidural steroid injection. This patient was Eddie C. Lovelace.”

In addition to the neurosurgical center, defendants include the Howell Allen Clinic and two of its employees, Saint Thomas West Hospital and its affiliates, including Ascension Health and Ascension Health Alliance. A drug testing firm used by the drug compounder also was named.

NECC was not named because the company has filed for bankruptcy and has been declared insolvent.

64 have died in U.S.

Meanwhile, the addition of one Tennessee case pushed the national death toll from the outbreak to 64. According to the CDC, the outbreak has sickened 750 patients nationwide, including 153 who were treated in Tennessee.

According to the suit filed by Patel’s grandson, he was injected with tainted steroids on Aug. 27 and Sept. 10 of 2012 and became ill after the second shot.

“He died of the defendants’ grossly negligent misconduct, acts and omissions,” the complaint states.